10/5/14

Poem: Perfection [1]

Of all the heroes whom the poets singThe one I like is General Goering:A man of iron, cold and stern, it seems,Ask him a simple question and he screams,If any other witness moves or speaksThe Court-House rings with long protracted shrieks;These sounds, mysterious to the racial stranger,Impress an Aryan people with the dangerOf interrupting strong and silent menJust at the psychological moment whenThey are, for Reich, Race, Goering and Gore,Having hysterics on the Court-House floor:Howl at us, black and purple in the face,To note the calm of the Germanic race.Not oft to any council, crowd or king,Comes the high windfall of the Perfect Thing.Those that dwell nearest Music’s mightiest chordsThink the best German Songs are Without WordsOr, studying Heine’s soul, may ponder longHow such a sneer became a Perfect Song:Hitlerites may explain how Race can teachImperfect wits to make a Perfect Speech,But all who know what crowns our mortal dreamWill own that Goering is a Perfect Scream.1. The world will not forget the weird psychological effect of the Prime Minister of Prussia shouting at a prisoner supposed to be receiving a fair trial, “You wait till I get you outside” like a very low-class schoolboy threatening what he would do out of school. That sort of thing simply does not happen among civilized people: not even when they are very wicked people. How anybody can see such lunacy dancing in high places, in the broad daylight of political responsibility, and have any further doubt about the sort danger that threatens the world, is more than I can understand.–G.K.C. (1933)